Man’s wife wins medal
Even at the Olympics. Even when women win gold medals at the Olympics – still they are called “wife of Man” instead of their own damn name or their event is given a cutesy belittling label.
Take judo. Majlinda Kelmendi made history when she became Kosovo’s first ever Olympic medallist – and a gold medallist to boot.
Her triumph in the 52kg event against Italy’s Odette Giuffrid marked a huge moment for a war-torn country that declared independence from Serbia eight years ago, and was only admitted into the International Olympic Committee in 2014.
And yet many viewers were taken aback as one BBC commentator described the contest – a sophisticated match-up of strength and guile – as a “catfight”.
A catfight. Geddit? Two bitchy girls clawing each other, hahahahahahaha girls are so stupid.
But sometimes they’re married to a man, so at least that helps them not be so insignificant and trivial.
Corey Cogdell-Unrein won a bronze medal in the women’s trap shooting – the second for the US shooting team in Rio and her second Olympic medal.
This is how the Chicago Tribune reported the news.
Chicago Tribune ✔ @chicagotribune
Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics http://trib.in/2asmvvr
2:33 PM – 7 Aug 2016
A guy’s wife won a bronze medal. Nice job, honey. Congratulations, babe. Well done, sweetheart.
When are these men going to realise just how offensive this sort of thing is? Not a tiny gaffe in the heat of the moment, not a lapse in their normal manly sensitivity or a failure to keep up with the latest fashion in language but a deliberate slight which anyone with 3 brain cells could work out in as many seconds.
It was bad enough that the local paper announced Dorothy Hodgkin’s award as “Oxford housewife wins Nobel prize” but that was in 1964. Have we made no progress since then?
Come on, guys! And do keep up!
When it starts happening to them?
The “wife of a Bears’ lineman” came so soon after “And there’s the man responsible” (Katinka Hosszu’s husband) and the front page pics of Bill when Hillary won the nomination, that I thought it was a parody, that people were crediting men for women’s wins to mock those previous incidents. Silly me.
You know. fork, when I was married to my ex, people came over to our house, which I kept sparkling clean, and complimented HIM on how well HE maintained the house. His contribution to keeping house was to watch TV and stay out of my way on Saturday mornings.
Daily I walk through an old pioneer cemetery in Portland, Oregon for exercise. Many of the old gravestones where both husband and wife are buried only list the wife as wife, but the husband is not listed as husband. For example a gravestone might say (on the top: Men always on the top, but maybe they die first, so who knows): “Joseph Williams 1823- 1880.” But just below for the wife it reads either as “Wife: Abigail Williams 1830-1899.” I have not seen the reverse, namely “Husband”.
Chuck #5, that reminds me of an incident when I worked in insurance billing. Sometimes the customers would write messages regarding their insurance on their bill stub when they sent in a check, like “please cancel my policy” or “bought a new Forester, please add.” Once, I opened an envelope containing a check and bill stub, the latter addressed to “John and Mary Smith.” Someone had crossed out “Mary,” written in “Jane,” and, for good measure, scrawled “New Wife” next to it. That one definitely got passed around the cubicles for a laugh.
But Cressida, that makes sense. When you get a new household appliance you only need to know the make (woman) and model (Jane), not the full design specs and serial number…
Chuck #5 – I’ve seen gravestones in London where the man was buried first and the woman added later where it just said “and his wife” without bothering to give a name.
I’m now trying to think whether I’ve seen any graves where the wife is at the top. I think the first deceased is usually on at the top. I’ve seen many where a space is left for when the spouse dies. Women tend to die second as we live a little longer and tend to have older husbands but there are still plenty of widowers out there.
To be fair to the Chicago Tribune, anyone who has worked on a local newspaper will know that there is always a lot of pressure to find a local angle to any story. I suspect that is what has happened here.
I spend a lot of time exploring cemeteries in London and elsewhere and have never seen such a thing. Where was this? I think it must be a one-off and quite a curiosity.
Its a perfect combination of devaluing women athletes, AND of twisting every story for a ‘home’ angle.
Corey Cogdell lives in Colorado. But her husband’s workplace makes it a Chicago story.
Pinkeen – how can you be so sure you’ve never seen such a thing? Do you think you notice everything you see? I know I notice only a tiny fraction of what I see, and I doubt that I’m unusual in that. I think you mean you’ve never noticed such a thing, which could have explanations other than not seeing it.
More broadly, I note the lack of epistemic caution in your claim.
I have a cousin who has a Ph.D. and was a full professor at a university for many years; her husband, also a Ph.D., was a professor at the same university. We used to get mail from them with the return address Dr. and Mrs. (His Name). Not Dr. and Dr. Not “John” and “Mary”, but Dr. and Mrs. Him
My mother was nearly as anti-feminist as it’s possible to be, but even she seethed at that. My cousin had worked as hard as her husband, had achieved as much as he had, and she was still Mrs. Him
My dad, also an anti-feminist, takes care to address all mail to us as Mr. and Dr., because he is so proud of my accomplishments (even if I am merely a daughter). It’s clunky, yes, but at least it acknowledges the woman’s accomplishment, even if I am then lumped with his name. And as for clunky, I suspect it only sounds clunky because we’re used to the opposite – Dr. and Mrs., not Mr. and Dr.
There was also the (male) Olympics commentator Sunday night who said that Simone Biles was raised by “her grandfather and his wife.” That made me want to throw things. It was unscripted, and it’s easy to fuck up when unscripted, but all the same.
He’s since apologized for calling them her grandparents instead of her parents (they adopted her), but apparently not for the “and his wife” shit.
That’s true, although ‘I’ve never seen’ is the usual English way of saying that. But I look at graves very attentively seeking the unusual, so I am fairly confident I would have noticed such a thing. It would certainly be a curiosity that many people would like to see, so I’d love to know where this grave is.
Well, ‘I’ve never seen’ is the usual English way of saying that in casual conversation, no doubt – but it’s not the usual way of saying it in conversations that are partly about epistemology, and what we notice and why, and what we are socially blind to, etc etc etc. Then double that when the conversation is written. At the very least it would be more “usual” to say “I’ve never noticed that.” Anyone who pays any attention at all to how we know what we know and how much we can claim to know would almost automatically shy away from saying “I’ve never seen” a contested X.
On the other hand your explanation for why you think you would have noticed is persuasive. Next time start with that & add “that I recall” or similar, and you’ll win the round.